|2.13| Tom Marvolo Riddle

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THEY WERE STANDING AT the end of a very long, dimly lit chamber. Towering stone pillars entwined with more carved serpents rose to support a ceiling lost in darkness, casting long, black shadows through the odd, greenish gloom that filled the place.

Grace grabbed Harry's hand in hers tightly, her heart was beating very fast.

They pulled out their wands and moved forward between the serpentine columns. Every careful footstep echoed loudly off the shadowy walls. Grace kept her eyes narrowed, ready to clamp them shut at the smallest sign of movement. The hollow eye sockets of the stone snakes seemed to be following them.

Then, as they drew level with the last pair of pillars, a statue high as the Chamber itself loomed into view, standing against the back wall.

Grace had to crane her neck to look up into the giant face above: It was ancient and monkeyish, with a long, thin beard that fell almost to the bottom of the wizard's sweeping stone robes, where two enormous gray feet stood on the smooth Chamber floor. And between the feet, facedown, lay a small, black-robed figure with flaming-red hair.

"Ginny!" Grace immediately dropped Harry's hands and sprinted towards her sister. Harry seemed to follow her. "Don't be dead--"

Kneeling on the ground, she grabbed her shoulders and and turned her around in her lap. Her face was white as marble and as cold, yet her eyes were closed, so she wasn't petrified.

Grace's hands were shaking violently; she couldn't get a hold on Ginny.

"Ginny, please wake up," Harry was shaking Ginny, her head lolled hopelessly from side to side.

"She won't wake," said a soft voice.

Grace and Harry spun around on their knees.

A tall, black-haired boy was leaning against the nearest pillar, watching. He was strangely blurred around the edges, as though Grace were looking at him through a misted window.

"What do you mean 'she won't wake up'?" Grace said sharply.

"Tom - Tom Riddle?" Harry said and Grace understood.

Riddle nodded, not taking his eyes off Harry's face.

"What d'you mean, she won't wake?" Grace repeated sharply.

"She's not - she's not -?"said Harry desperately.

"She's still alive," said Riddle. "But only just."

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